Not Another Bloody Nosferatu Remake! But This One Needs to Happen

The original—and the best? Count Orlok (Max Schreck) in a colourised still from Nosferatu, eine Symphonie des Grauens (1922). Subject to several remakes, another may be in the works. Picture: Prana-Film; YouTube/Harry Steiman.

I’m not usually a fan of remakes—creative bankruptcy and all that—but there’s one remake in the works I’m actually looking forward to: Nosferatu.

Considered a minor classic in its own right, Herzog’s film inspired Augusto Caminito’s Nosferatu a Venezia (1988), an unofficial sequel also starring Klaus Kinski as the vampire—but only unofficial because a legitimate attempt was apparently scuttled by Kinski’s eccentricity and temperament.

Herzog’s “tribute” aside, there have been other attempts at remaking Murnau’s masterpiece. David R. Williams had a go with a direct-to-video “blood-drenched revisioning” called Red Scream Nosferatu (2009), described by one critic as “cheap, arty, gory, and astoundingly dull.”

A slow burn masterpiece of modern horror, deeply atmospheric, packed with period detail and rich, archaic dialogue (“Wouldst thou like to live deliciously?”)—this remake’s in with a chance thanks to its pedigree. Eggers even has previous experience directing a Nosferatu adaptation:

A local theater owner saw the high school performance and hired the teenager to re-stage the play professionally.

“That’s when I realized this is what I want to be doing,” said Eggers. “‘Nosferatu’ has a very close, magical connection for me. Though if I were to make the movie 17-year-old Rob was going to make of ‘Nosferatu’ it would have been something between like ‘The Nightmare Before Christmas’ and ‘Sin City,’ whereas this is going to be the same approach as ‘The Witch,’ where 1830s Biedermeier Baltic Germany needs to be articulated in a way that seems real.”

That’s exactly the kind Nosferatu remake I’d like to see—The VVitch, but with vampires. There’s no need to re-tread Murnau’s Expressionist style (like the “remix” is going to), when Eggers’ own approach works wonders on every level. But I don’t want to count my chickens before they’ve hatched.

You see, Eggers has backed away from making the film before. In 2016, Eggers told Collider:

“Well, it’s actually not what I’m doing next. I think it seems very disgusting and presumptuous and megalomaniacal and offensive for someone in my position to say they want to do Nosferatu next, so I think that’s why it hit the trades in a big way. I still might do it, but not next. It’s a masterpiece and it really doesn’t objectively need to be done, but I’ve been obsessed with that film since I was a little kid. But, you know, Peter Jackson was obsessed with King Kong and we saw how that turned out. [Laughs]”